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John Hoffman
by George J. Dance John Hoffman (1928-1952) was an American Beat poet, who held a "legendary status within the overlapping circles of Beat Generation and San Francisco Renaissance writers." Life Hoffman is virtually unknown, and little has been written about him. Carl Solomon puts his birthplace as Menlo Park, California.Carl Solomon, Emergency Measures, quoted in George Wallace, "from the Volcano: On the poetry of John Hoffman," Poetry Bay, Winter 2005-2006. Web, Sep. 7, 2015. He was a friend of poets Gerd Stern, Philip Lamantia, and Chris Maclaine. Hoffman has been called an "archetype of the Beat-era hipster — tall, lean, goateed, and bespectacled." Solomon described him as "Blond, handsome, bespectacled, long hair" with a" Spaced out quality that amused many people." His friend Stern gave a similar description: "He was blond, tall, and very skinny, and he came from the peninsula south of San Francisco. He was really good-looking, but he had this vacant kind of look in his eyes." Around 1950 Hoffman moved to New York City, where he ran into Stern. After living in Stern's car (and another poet's apartment) for a while, Hoffman and Stern decided to go to sea, travelling as crew on a Norwegian merchant ship to Rio de Janeiro. During this time both were "writing poetry like mad." Hoffman died in Mexico, of unknown causes, at age 24.[http://www.citylights.com/book/?GCOI=87286100220120 Tau By Philip Lamantia and Journey to the End By John Hoffman], City Lights Books. Web, Sep. 7, 2015. Writing Inspired by Rimbaud and Lautréamont, Hoffman sought to create a transcendent art that would remythologize poetry.[http://www.beatstudies.org/pdfs/lamantia_hoffman.pdf Tau by Philip Lamantia and Journey to the End by John Hoffman (review)], BeatStudies.org. Web, Sep. 7, 2015. Poetry Bay says of his work:George Wallace, "from the Volcano: On the poetry of John Hoffman," Poetry Bay, Winter 2005-2006. Web, Sep. 7, 2015. There is ecstatic spirituality to be found in his work. But this is a writer who is unafraid of devotional formality. At times, it is as if Hoffman seems to be addressing a primal or animist deity, in the incantatory voice of a somewhat subdued human in the presence of something larger than himself but also inside himself ("O dark sun/Setting in my bloodsea!; Dry rains the rain on me my days/No longer me but what becomes"). He swings from descriptive to metaphysical (The coiled sun/swings/Like a slow snake/Across//The sky calendar... or this, from "Socrates or Confucius": "death is after all: nothing/those who don't fear are: equilibrists/there is only one number: One.") At other times, his approach devolves to folk-like lyrics, as in "(PIQUE/Song)", where he mimics the song of crows: "Love is burning burning burning/Buried gods lie under trees/Scarecrows caw at lost apostles/Clutching them by tattered sleeves." There are quite beautiful specifics in the poetry - banana trees, birds lighting on windows with news of distant beaches, seashacks and 'sunflowers bursting at their zenith.' And he makes good use of repetition, individual images or whole lines, to engender an odelike sense of wonder, as in the marvelous "The Abandoners": They had built a shack of wind The sand ate its walls: and Hideous summer spouted a sea at them. Hurricanes later I returned (tho I had never been) How hard to grasp a former presence Tho it was nailed where the door had been Now the dunes have locked it open: Better try to grasp the wind Better try to grasp the wind Recognition At the famous 6 Gallery Beat reading in 1955 (at which Allen Ginsberg debuted "Howl"), Lamantia chose to read Hoffman's poetry rather than his own. Hoffman is mentioned in "Howl". He also briefly appears in two Jack Kerouac novels, The Dharma Bums (as "Altman") and Visions of Cody (as "John Parkman"). John Suiter claimed that Hoffman was also a minor character in The Subterraneans by Kerouac.Dave Moore, I’ve read that, at the famous Six Gallery poetry Question, Kerouac Corner, Dharma Beat. Web, Sep. 7, 2015. Publications *''Journey to the End: Poems''. Oakland, CA: Kolourmein Press, 2000. **revised & expanded in Philip Lamantia, Tau / John Hoffman, Journey to the End (with introductions by Lamantia & Garrett Caples). San Francisco: City Lights, 2008. ISBN 978-0-87286-485-6 Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy WorldCat.Search results = au:John Hoffman, WorldCat, OCLC Online Computer Library Center Inc. Web, Sep. 7, 2015. See also *The Beat poets *List of U.S. poets References External links ;Poems *John Hoffman 1 poem ("I am witness to the threshing of the grain") at the Academy of American Poets ;About *"News from the Volcano: On the poetry of John Hoffman" at Poetry Bay Category:1928 births Category:1952 deaths Category:20th-century poets Category:American poets Category:Beat Generation poets Category:English-language poets Category:People from California Category:Poets